1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to linking of multiple consoles, especially to a linking system and method for automatically setting up communication protocol and station number of consoles.
2. Description of Prior Art
In automatic control, a distribution control system is often employed to connect a plurality of consoles. The consoles in the distribution control system should be connected with suitable communication protocol for normal operation.
FIG. 1 shows a prior art master-slave architecture for a plurality of consoles, where the slave consoles are controlled by at least one master console. The consoles should communicate with complied protocol such as baud rate, coding format and even/odd parity. Moreover, the consoles should be assigned with unique station number (ID number) for identifying each other. However, the consoles in prior art master-slave architecture cannot automatically set up unified communication protocol and station numbers. The task of setting up should be performed by trial and error manually. The setting of communication protocol has the erroneous risk due to manual mistake.